Strange Outcomes

James Kunstler has an entirely different view of things, as you might expect. Having just watched the movie Cabaret again, set in pre-Nazi Germany, I think I know what he means:

How bad is the situation 'out there' really? In my view, things are
veering toward such extreme desperation that the US government might fall under
the sway, by extra-electoral means, of an ambitious military officer, or a group
of such, sometime in the near future. I'm not promoting a coup d'etat, you
understand, but I am raising it as a realistic possibility as elected officials
prove utterly unwilling to cope with a mounting crisis of capital and resources.
The 'corn-pone Hitler' scenario is still another possibility - Glen Beck and
Sarah Palin vying for the hearts and minds of the morons who want 'to keep
gubmint out of Medicare!' - but I suspect that there is a growing cadre of
concerned officers around the Pentagon who will not brook that f**** nonsense
for a Crystal City minute and, what's more, would be very impatient to begin
correcting the many fiascos currently blowing the nation apart from within.
Remember, today's US military elite is battle-hardened after eight years
of war in Asia. No doubt they love their country, as Julius Caesar and Napoleon
Bonaparte loved theirs. It may pain them to stand by and watch it dissolve like
a castle made of sugar in a winter gale.

I raise this possibility because no one else has, and I think we ought to
be aware that all kinds of strange outcomes are possible in a society under
severe stress. History is a harsh mistress. For all his 'star quality' and
likable personality, President Obama is increasingly perceived as impotent where
the real ongoing disasters of public life are concerned, and he has made the
tragic choice to appear to be hostage to the bankers who are systematically
draining the life-blood from the middle class. Whatever we are seeing on the S
& P ticker these days does not register the agony of ordinary people losing
everything they worked for and even believed in. In a leadership vacuum,
centers don't hold, things come apart, and rough beasts slouch toward Wall
Street.